Local elections 2023: Labour gains in Middlesbrough replicated across England to boost Starmer’s electoral chances

Does a clean sweep for Labour in Middlesbrough signal a wider trend of renewal for the party?

At around 4am on Friday morning at a sports hall in Middlesbrough, Chris Cooke stepped onto a podium and spoke his first words as the newly elected mayor of his hometown.

“I’ll keep it relatively short, because I think, like everyone, we’ve got to be back here in about three hours,” he joked, referring to the full council election count which would soon be underway. Cooke looked exhausted and maybe just a little overwhelmed by the result.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Some 12 hours later, he’d stand at the front of a large group of re-elected and newly elected Labour councillors, some of whom will now make up the executive of the local authority Cooke will lead.

They will replace an executive which many in the town feel has become entirely dysfunctional. Accusations of bullying, poor decision-making and governance issues have dogged the council and outgoing mayor Andy Preston in recent months, culminating recently with a warning of potential intervention from central government.

Cooke and his new council will be tasked with restoring levels of service and delivery at a difficult moment for the town, which some in the community believe is experiencing one of its lowest points in decades. But the question will be whether the challenges facing the town were caused by the dysfunction of its council, or the other way around. Preston has maintained that the issues the council has faced in recent years are a product of systemic problems, arguing roundaboutly that things had to get worse before they could get better.

By gaining four seats at the expense of independent candidates, Labour secured control of a council it lost for the first time in its history last time around. A clean sweep for the party in Middlesbrough may not entirely be indicative of a return to political normalcy in the so-called ‘red wall’, given that unlike most nearby constituencies, the town’s Labour MP remained in place in 2019, with a large, albeit reduced, majority.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

But you don’t have to look far to find more compelling evidence of this possibility. In nearby Hartlepool, where Labour lost badly in a 2021 parliamentary by-election and only a third of council seats were up for grabs this time around, the party made significant gains, pushing the council into no overall control and missing out on a majority by two(!) votes.

Elsewhere, the party has picked up a number of councils, with wins in battleground areas like Swindon, Blackpool, Stoke and Plymouth offering further encouragement to Keir Starmer.

Some degree of loss for a party 13-years into national incumbency is to be expected, but as more and more results come in the Conservative losses creep closer and closer to the -1,000 mark, which many highlighted as a benchmark for what would constitute a worryingly bad performance for the party.

Of the 35 or so councils the party has lost, most have gone to no overall control, rather than Labour, while many have been taken by the Liberal Democrats, who have surged in rural areas and even held off Labour in places like Hull.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

It could be argued that the Conservatives have done worse than any other party has done well. But with all the other parties making gains, the most likely outcome at a general election would be that Keir Starmer becomes Prime Minister, whether with an outright majority or with the support of the Liberal Democrats and/or Greens, who’ve also had a positive election. This kind of “Tories out” coalition, which seems only more likely to materialise in the wake of this result, would represent an existential threat to the Conservative’s electoral chances.

But few sure-things last in politics. It was a matter of months between their worst national election performance in the modern era (at the 2019 European elections,) and the Conservatives securing a massive majority under Boris Johnson in 2019. People were certain Theresa May would secure a massive majority in 2017, and people were almost equally certain that Johnson would remain in power for the best part of a decade. Things change fast and politicians make their own fate, for better or worse. If there were any doubts before that the Tories won’t hold out as long as possible before calling an election, this result should remove them. This gives Sunak - or potentially, even, a different leader - time and space to act. Sunak can now do nothing to win the election that has just passed, but he could yet do something to win the one that’s coming. His task will be made easier if Starmer’s position of relative strength breeds complacency.

Comment Guidelines

National World encourages reader discussion on our stories. User feedback, insights and back-and-forth exchanges add a rich layer of context to reporting. Please review our Community Guidelines before commenting.